Professor Has Figured Out The Secrets To Dealing With Viral PR Disasters

In the Internet era, when a company screws up it may face backlash by millions of people around the world.

Stephen Andriole, professor at Villanova School of Business, and his co-authors at ListenLogic, a PA social media monitoring and research company, looked at 100 of the worst cases in their upcoming book “Avoiding #FAIL: Mitigating Risk, Managing Threats and Protecting Your Business in the Age of Social Media,” which comes out in July.

We’ve broken out the stories and data from a few of the worst, from a backfiring McDonald’s hashtag to a wildly inappropriate Papa John’s receipt. Each of them offers a important lesson on how companies should react.

United Airlines gets destroyed by a dude with a guitar.

The Disaster:

United baggage handlers broke Dave Carroll's guitar. After nine months of back and forth, he was denied a refund. Caroll produced three YouTube videos about the incident, just like he told a United exec he would.

His three YouTube videos were viewed ~14.5M times in total. Over 1M tweets referencing Dave Carroll. United eventually apologized and offered a refund, but it was too late for its reputation.

Lessons Learned:

If United had resolved the issue within the first few months, Carroll could have been managed before he agreed to make the videos.

If a customer is denied, do not deny him again when he tells you he is going to create a series of videos attacking the company on YouTube (double deviation).

Unique music and videos that are supplemented by blog posts and social media become uncontrollable once they're posted online.

A Papa John's employee's racist receipt makes it online.

The Disaster:

On January 7, 2012, Minhee Cho tweeted a picture of a receipt from Papa John's that had her name listed as 'lady chinky eyes,' making sure to tag @PapaJohns in the post.

Unfortunately for the pizza company, her tweet got pulled onto the company twitter page. It quickly went viral, getting almost 6,000 retweets and 1,000 favourites later. Papa John's apologized publicly and via Twitter, and the employee responsible was eventually fired.

Lessons learned:

Tweeting at a brand, person often makes the post appear to a significantly higher following (in this case @PapaJohns currently has ~59,000 followers).

Apologizing on Facebook brings an entirely new group of social media users (in this case Papa Johns currently has ~2.6M likes).

Set the social media site's setting to require approval if a brand/person's username is used in a tweet -- this will require the site moderator's approval before it is posted to the official wall/feed.

Reebok promotes infidelity in a German ad.

The Disaster:

In March 2012, Reebok ran an advertisement with the infidelity-promoting slogan, 'Cheat on your girlfriend, not on your workout.'

The ad began circulating on Twitter and YouTube, getting upwards of 100k views. CheaterVille.com contacted Reebok complaining about 5,000+ emails received about the ad. Reebok apologized and pulled the ad from Germany, where it was launched.

Lesson learned:

Social media can turn an issue that occurred in another country into a US issue as US customers threatened to boycott Reebok over this issue.

Images of the ad first appeared on March 17th and could have been removed then, but Reebok did not respond until March 20.

McDonald's publicizes its customers' most negative experiences.

The Disaster:

McDonald's paid Twitter to trend the hashtag '#McDStories' in January 2012, only to have customers tweet negative experiences they had at the restaurants. There were 20,000 tweets with the '#McDStories' hashtag, and #McFail got 3,000+ posts.

Within the first two hours, McDonald's asked Twitter to remove the trending item, though it later claimed that only 2% of the posts were negative.

Lesson learned:

Be aware of customer sentiment before reaching out via social media.

Hashtags can easily be hijacked.

Contingency plans for hijacking must always be in place.

Once the hashtag trends, it can be difficult to stop.

ESPN publishes a racist headline during Linsanity.

The Disaster:

ESPN used the headline 'Chink In The armour' to refer to basketball star Jeremy Lin. The site was accused of racism, as screenshots of the headline were passed around the Internet.

ESPN apologized and fired the editor who posted the headline.

Lesson learned:

Anything posted on the Web can be captured in video and images that will be difficult or impossible to take down after the fact.

Find the source of the issue and quietly take care of it before too many photos can be reproduced that will be spread across the Web forever.

Monitor and track discussion around a brand-damaging incident with insensitive material and use social media to interact with upset readers/viewers.

American Airlines thanks people for abusing it on Twitter.

The Disaster:

American Airlines responded to every single tweet it received from Twitter users in February with automated responses thanking people for their 'support.' These tweets looked highly out of place in response to critical and sometimes offensive tweets.

Lesson learned:

Automatic reply tweets can result in negative press and damage a brand.

Chick-Fil-A wades into the gay marriage debate.

The Disaster:

Chick-Fil-A donated millions of dollars to an anti-gay rights organisation, an action brought to the forefront when president Dan Cathy publicly made gay-bashing comments.

The fast food chain posted on Facebook resolving to focus its attention on strong Christian values, instead of on the gay marriage debate. The single post gained over 240,000 'Likes,' over 50,000 comments, and 16,000 shares. Chick-Fil-A appreciation day had 650,000 attendees.

Lesson learned:

Not being involved in political issues as a corporation is paramount to avoiding social media suicide.

Many of Chick-Fil-A's PR issues could have been avoided if it had early warning to avoid any statements around the issue.

A report uncovers potential abuses in Samsung factories.

The Disaster:

China labour Watch released a report accusing Samsung of engaging in underage, discriminatory, underpaid labour practices in eight of their Chinese factories.

There were 6.5k Tweets sent over a two-month period about the issue, and a follow-up report was released by Chinese labour Watch. Samsung denied the allegations but also said it would reevaluate its practices.

Lesson learned:

Consumers will lash back if they feel like their products are coming from places with poor working conditions.

Show steps to correct the issue before international news can report that nothing is being done.

labour and Activist groups are very savvy when it comes to social media.

Bank of America underestimates how much people hate debit card fees.

The Disaster:

After a new regulatory rule prevented it from collecting fees on debit card transactions, Bank of America announced a $5 monthly fee so it wouldn't lose money. Customers did not like it, especially because the company was being criticised for its role in the financial crisis.

There were over 500,000 tweets protesting or commenting on the proposed move. Bank of America, along with other banks that announced similar fees, was forced to pull back.

Lesson learned:

Show consumers the reasoning for planned fees, before officially announcing a rollout.

When a company is under significant public pressure to prove it is fiscally responsible, trying to gain more money from customers can be misconstrued.

Kenneth Cole promotes its brand via the Arab Spring.

The Disaster:

At the culmination of the Egyptian protests that sparked the Arab Spring, which was heavily publicized on social media, American fashion empire Kenneth Cole tweeted out:

'Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. rumour is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo -KC.'

Within hours, the KC account attracted 3,000 new followers. Fake Kenneth Cole Twitter accounts were created, satirizing the incident and commenting offensively on other world issues. Kenneth Cole sent an apology tweet, apology post, and removed the original tweet.

Lesson learned:

Companies must be very careful when using social media to promote their brand.

Controversial hashtags and trends should never be used for promotions as customers will not only see right through it but share the incident quickly and the reaction will be overwhelmingly negative.

Carnival shuts its social media down in the middle of a disaster.

The Disaster:

A Costa Cruise ship, under parent company Carnival, sank in January 2012, killing 32 passengers. As a result, Carnival said it was 'going to take a bit of a break from posting on our social channels.'

Thousands commented on the company's post about the decision on Facebook. After shutting down social media for a week following the disaster, Carnival opened its social media gateways once again.

Lesson learned:

Customers expect increased engagement in times of crisis.

Social media discussion of companies will occur regardless if the company participates.

Failing to participate in these discussions can be one of the worst options.

A new Verizon fee leaks to the media.

The Disaster:

Leaked Verizon documents showed that it planned to add a $2 fee for one-time bill paying. 14,000 tweets went out about the fee in just two days.

Verizon backed off and canceled the fee within a day.

Lesson learned:

Leaked information is far more tantalising and aggravating than information given in a straight-forward manner.

Fees around cable, Internet and phone attract much attention on the Web.

Small issues like fees attract attention to other major issues in a company or industry.